For decades I’ve read about the part in John’s Revelation where after a period of 1,000 years of peace and justice, satan will be released for a “little while.” (Revelation 20).
What’s up with that? God brings total peace and justice to earth and then allows it to all fall apart? - Again!
I think I finally get it. Adam and Eve had a perfect Father. They had a perfect home environment. There was nothing lacking in their lives. After the fall there was nothing and no one for them to blame for choosing to bring the influence of evil into the universe. Nevertheless, Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed satan, and both of them (as do present-day atheists) insinuated that what they did was God’s fault. Ever since then, people have been blaming everyone and everything (except ourselves) for the horrors that we inflict upon each other. The current fad, led by atheists the world over, is to blame religion for the world’s ills. “We aren’t the problem,” they say. “It’s not our destruction loving nature that turns everything we touch into crap, including religion. No. It’s religion’s fault!”
Two famous atheists, Marx and Engels put it bluntly, “Abolish all religion and all morality.”
Wilfully ignoring our own sinful nature causes people to believe that eternal banishment to hell is tremendously unfair. “How dare God inflict such a horrific consequence for the simple sin of rebellion against one’s Creator?”
Ya, right. The SIMPLE sin of choosing evil over Love.
When Jesus returns for a thousand year reign, the basis for that idea is going to be removed. We are going to see that there is no one to blame save our own evil nature for the savagery and pain and betrayal and rebellion that we find so common among ourselves. For 1,000 years there is going to be peace and perfect justice. Just as it was before Adam and Eve made their fateful decision. For 1,000 years the power and influence of evil is going to be held at bay. Security and abundance will be available for all - for those who honour God and for those who don't.
And then, after 1,000 years of nothing but good, after 10 centuries (if this is a literal time-frame) of no one lacking for anything, the power and influence of sin will once again be allowed into our midst.
Why?
I think this is the point. If you look at James 1:13-15 you’ll see that there was nothing in Jesus to which satan could make his appeal. Jesus was tempted - it’s true - but there was nothing in Him that would find evil attractive enough to make Him give in to that temptation. For us, it’s completely different. Atheists would like us to believe that we are born good, but that is simply not the case. Like iron filings being drawn to a magnet, the evil that is in us from conception is drawn to the evil influence that is present in the world. Remove one or the other (the evil in us, or the evil influence in the world) and peace and justice CAN exist. For 1,000 years the influence of evil (satan’s “power to deceive the nations” Rev. 20:3) will be removed from earth. Without the evil influence in our world tempting us, our predisposition to evil will be “switched off” so to speak and we will actually accept goodness and justice. After 1,000 years, however, evil is going to be allowed once more to enter the scene. Our evil nature will come back to life and we will know that it truly is evil that we love; that we truly do love evil more than good.
When satan’s power to deceive the nations re enters the mix, sin loving men and women will turn with a vengeance on the One who provided them with everything they ever needed. This shows that even without evil being allowed to exercise its power to deceive us, OUR resident evil nature lies dormant, ready and waiting for something to attach itself to. The stench of our spiritual rot to which satan makes his appeal will be out for all to see.
God’s justice and wrath toward evil and toward those who love evil (those who have wilfully chosen to not allow God to remove this curse through faith in Jesus) will be incontestable. The consequence of hell will be seen as totally appropriate for those who would rebel against their Creator.
“Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are His judgments." Revelation 16:6; 19:1,2
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ReplyDeleteThis raises an issue however. It means that even the story of Jesus, or at least what he said, cannot be perfectly obtained from the New Testament. It means that we must interpret everything in there, having in mind what the historical context was and what the knowledge of the authors was. Nothing can be taken literally without first thinking about it, but it is still no problem with having a faith in Jesus as this is the basis premise.
Now let’s go back to something more personal that will come back directly to that issue after I have explained it. When I decided to accept Jesus and pray to Him, I felt an intense emotion that was hard to describe and especially hard to explain. When I informed you of that event, your reaction was to mention right away the reality of the supernatural.
Even though the event was nothing but ordinary, I still have a hard time concluding that it was anything but natural. I am the one who decided to think of Jesus as Lord and Saviour, I am the one who dedicated several days reading scripture differently, thinking about my life differently, and praying differently than before, and finally, I am the one who decided to do THE prayer that led to this special experience. But more importantly, what I realized later on, and felt a bit embarrassed to admit to myself, was that nothing that I experienced was out of the mental capacity of my brain.
Therefore, at this point, my question to you is, why did you think that what I described to you had anything to do with a supernatural reality?
This finally goes back to the Adam, Eve and Jesus points exposed above. I am not sure if you realized why already...? I am a bit shy to expose the extrapolation of my idea to the big picture so I guess I will wait for your input on the above point before. Actually, the problem is that I hope I am wrong...
Regards
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ReplyDeleteThe problem I have is that this story is obviously metaphorical. It cannot be otherwise. God the Creator did not make humans as they are today. We evolved just like any other animals. These are facts of nature that cannot be refuted. But, at the same time, I don’t consider it to void the entire story. The way I concile it, Adam and Eve could be the symbolic representation of the first two humans who had real free will, a sense of morality, or in other words, a soul; so, no problem here.
Moving on, we now get to other questions: Jesus, on many occasions, did mention the literal Creation, including the first human couple. This can mean at least two things. Either Jesus was lying, or he was using symbols to explain what he was talking about, just like the other parables he used. Since Jesus cannot have lied, it must have been a usage of symbols so that people of his time could understand.
Or, another possibility is that the words of Jesus were not written down properly but transformed to suit the agenda of the people of the time. Since these people did not have intentions to do so, as they were simply relating their beliefs and experiences, I will also discard that idea, or at the very least concede that they could have made mistakes, but not purposely lie.
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ReplyDeleteI am not able to post the start of my comment!!
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ReplyDeleteSorry the mess... I had split the message in 2 parts, but for some weird reason, the first part could not be sent, took me forever to be able to put it in full. So strange...
cya
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The intro got erased again!!
ReplyDeleteWhat's going on !?!?
As promised (not that you really care probably, but anyway ;)), here are the few questions I had...
ReplyDeleteI choose to write to you because, since you suggested trying to start by accepting Jesus, I realized many things and already exposed to you an intense experience that I lived. So I consider that you were an important influence; the suggestion of the 4 audio sermons being a pillar of my new faith trial.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, I still feel very distant from someone like you (no offense) because of what you write on a daily basis, so that’s why I feel like you are a good person to talk to in order to start working on the obstacles that are supposed to shrink after one accepts Jesus as Lord of his life.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, the timing of your post is also right on for one of the things I wanted to address: Adam and Eve... The thought process I had was very long and very detailed, and I did not write it down as I was going along my research and thinking so I will try to write it down here quickly.
ReplyDeleteHi Hugo,
ReplyDeleteI have to say, my man, you used to make a lot more sense when you were . . . well, anyhow -
In answer to part one - John 6:44 - If you have moved from unsaved to saved, while the emotion that you experienced was certainly natural, the reason for it was anything but. No one comes to Jesus unless God has drawn them.
In answer to part two - It looks like this is something that we won’t know the answer to this side of eternity.
Hugo, you find out that God is the real deal by obeying Him and by believing what He says. There’s a line from addiction circles that applies here, “Half measures availed us nothing.” You’re either in or your out. Time’s a-wasting. Don't get lost in the paralysis of analysis. You take the first step and Jesus will take care of the rest. If you stop, he'll not move one cm. further.